It’s very common for students to use long words they don’t understand very well in their essays and theses because they have a certain idea of what academic writing should be. Many students believe that academic writing is wordy and convoluted, and uses a lot of jargon. This leads many students to fall into a trap of imagining that the longer the word, the more impressive and intelligent their writing will seem. We often see long sentences and multisyllabic words where shorter sentences and simpler words would do. Some students even use Microsoft Word’s thesaurus function to replace a common word with a more complicated word. This is a risky move, because unless you’re very careful, the new word may …

Writing your thesis is taxing as it is; and formatting your thesis to make it look neat and consistent is an essential, but often tedious (and sometimes, confusing) part of the thesis-writing process. Good thing Microsoft Word has Styles—a feature that makes formatting much quicker and less complicated. But what exactly is a style? It is a set of formatting instructions, such as the font size, colour and paragraph spacing to be used, that has been saved, so you don’t have to manually format each section of your document. A style is also what Word uses to identify different parts of your document. This is how you are able to see headings and subheadings on the Navigation Pane. It is …

Definition of heading A heading is a short phrase describing what the succeeding section is all about. You can think of it as the title of that particular section. Short documents usually do not require the use of headings. For theses and other complex readings, however, headings are important because they help readers identify the main points of each section in the paper. Why different heading levels are needed All right, now we know a heading is there to tell readers what a section is about. Some points are more important than others, so assigning different heading levels is necessary to indicate their significance. The level of a heading should be based on whether the idea is a main point, …

First, let us define the terms Abbreviation, Acronym and Initialism. According to merriam-webster.com, abbreviation is ‘a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole,’ while acronym is ‘a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term,’ and initialism is ‘an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters.’ Given these definitions, we can conclude that acronyms and initialisms are forms of abbreviation. And the difference between an acronym and an initialism is that we pronounce the letters in an acronym as a word, and we spell out the letters in an initialism. Click Here to Download …

Since theses are usually built on original research conducted by the PhD candidate, many researchers need to collect a large amount of data—both qualitative and quantitative—to meet the requirements of their doctoral studies. With the ability to connect to thousands—even, potentially, millions—of people via the Internet, in some ways there has never been a better time to be collecting statistics. However, reaching those people and persuading them to fill out your survey or be your interview subject can be difficult. Here are some tips and tools for collecting the research you need for your thesis. Click HERE to Download our Tips on Finding Influencers in your Field Creating a survey There are many different survey generators online. Many of …

Brighton is renowned throughout the UK as a student magnet. With two universities and a music academy, there is a large population of students, many of whom stay on after their degrees because living there is so appealing. It’s a party town and a haven for alternative lifestyles of all stripes. Where else can you live on the beach and at the forefront of culture and creativity just an hour’s train-ride from London? Click here to get a map showing these thesis-writing spots in Brighton However, London-by-sea’s reputation for being the nation’s party venue can sometimes let students down when they’re at the pointy end of writing a thesis. It can be difficult to find a quiet corner to …